Oh wow, yeah I bet you’ll do great! Was Japanese simply an option to take for your foreign language classes at school or did a previous interest in Japanese is what led you to taking it as a class?
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In year 7 everyone had to take a language for at least a year, and we had the option of taking French, German or Japanese. Initially, there were around 40-45 kids who did Japanese. There are six of us in the class now, which is pretty nice because it means we get to have more conversation practice with our teacher and we get feedback straight away.
I remember the language classes used to start in year 4 (9 years old) and seeing the language class posters and stuff around school and I thought kanji, hiragana and katakana looked cool, which is why I wanted to learn Japanese. That was a bit of a weird reason looking back, because I didn’t have an interest or really any knowledge of Japanese media or culture at the time.
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I’ve usually seen French, German, and Spanish in schools. Cool your school offered Japanese. I think smaller classes are the best way to learn anything. You otherwise get lost in the sea of students. Good luck with your test.
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WK lv 24 is more than enough to pass N4 provided your grammar and listening are not too bad. I cleared N4 at WK lv17. Just do some timed practice tests before you go for the actual test and you’ll be fine. I cleared N2 in July this year.
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Right, and the vocab that comes up in N1 is generally the kind of thing that might appear in any conversation that touches the topic – it’s subject specific but it’s also terms the general public knows, not specialist vocabulary or jargon. Reading newspaper articles or essays is a closer orientation to the test because the topics appear more frequently, but if you’re reading in other genres that works too – you just have to read a greater volume of text to encounter them.
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I could cry lol
I signed up for N2 and I felt confident about being able to study enough to pass when I signed up this summer. Then a lot of stuff went to shit. Now I finally feel up to studying again, but man, losing 2 months to bs is rough.
I’ll see if I’m up to a full practice test tomorrow or maybe next weekend. I could just barely pass the sample questions on the jlpt’s website in summer, so we’ll how it goes.
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Yeah I’ve heard that’s the norm in most schools. I live in Australia and my state offers some really random languages, like Latin, I’ve got a list which I’ll attach.
I’m surprised my school doesn’t offer Chinese because there are lots of kids who are Chinese or have moved from other schools that offer it. Because it isn’t offered, they have to go do the classes on the weekends in person, or during spare periods at school online.
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That’s quite a list. Wow. Looks to cover quite a bit of the major world languages.
Sorry to be kinda weird but you’re In the uk right ? I’m In year 10! First time I’ve met someone that’s still in secondary education here lol.If you are taking your gcse good luck! I took mine last year, I think you’ll definitely pass the n5 with that level.
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I live in Australia near Melbourne, I’m doing VCE which goes from year 11-12. I think it’s the equivalent of A-Level. So it sounds like I did the same level as you last year!
Latin and Ancient Greek are the classical languages in western cultures, are they uncommonly taught in English-speaking countries? I’m a lot more surprised to see languages like Turkish, Bosnian and Macedonian taught on the other side of globe to be honest.
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I was waiting for this post because I was too shy to make my own! Haha.
I’m feeling ok but still pretty nervous. I signed up for N2 knowing it was gonna be a struggle…and it is a struggle lol. I passed N3 really solidly last December, but the level gap is pretty big.
I took a practice test, and I got like 53% (one question over half right) in kanji, 83% for grammar and reading comprehension, and 66% for listening. I think I can actually scrape a pass with a score like that, but obviously it’s going to depend on what questions show up on the real test…
I’m so torn about how to proceed with this last month! Do I try to pull up my kanji score so I don’t accidentally drop below the passing threshold there? Do I keep focused on grammar and reading, since that’s obviously where I’m getting most of my points?
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I just started here an Wanikani. I took 1 college class, did a bunch of websites I can’t really remember the names of, tried duolingo, tried the Learn Japanese to Survive games, but I like the set up around here. I learned hiragana and katakana in the class and some simple vocabulary with grammar. I don’t like regular school for learning languages. I looked into maybe trying the JLPT since I have experience with over 200 kanji from my previous efforts, but I’d have to travel to take it and I may not be ready. I decided to just become super overpowered before trying the test because I’m through taking stressful tests. Good luck to everyone else.
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I just joined Wanikani but have previously finished Heisig and passed N4 and N3. In December I’ll be doing N2. I’m not super confident because my grammar isn’t great. Whenever I study it I forget what I learnt soon after. I understand grammar when I read it though so hopefully I’ll be able to pick the correct answer based on what feels right.
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In England, Latin and Greek are only rarely available – I found a web page saying 5% of pupils have the option of taking GCSE Latin (the age-16 exam). This is I think largely a time and interest issue – most schools offer a couple of the major languages (20 years ago, mine did French and German for ages 11-16, and checking their website that’s still all they offer), and Latin and Greek are only available if your school is so massive it can provide teaching in subjects very few pupils will select, or if it has a public-school (private school for the non-UK people) tradition that maintains the old idea that Classics are a key part of the curriculum. They’re still more likely to turn up than Turkish or Bosnian, though.
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Well that is suprising to me. We only had the choice between french and latin in year 7 (german school in the country side)
I chose latin, hated it but had to stick with it til year 10 i think 
At least when i left school you still needed a latin certificate to enter university for specific degrees (i think stuff like pharmacy )
I think we had at least 3 latin teacher at our school which overall had like 25-30 teachers if even.
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Same energy guys, I’ll be taking N2 this december and I feel truly overwhelmed by the grammar (mainly 
). When I signed up I thought I could have more time to study, but then university and work got me stuck in the process and I feel like I don’t have time to learn everything that’s left for me. Actually, I got in because I wanted to motivate myself and study more, but well it wasn’t my fault after all. So, I could say insecurity is what I’m feeling about the test.
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I was originally planning to do the N3 next July, but then I discovered that my hometown is hosting the JLPT for the first time since pre-covid in December so I impulsively decided to go for it…
I’m not feeling super confident at the moment, but I’m working as hard as I can - so if I fail then its just going to mean I need to try again in July like I originally planned. And thats ok.
(At least thats what I’m trying to tell myself 
)
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Taking the N4 for my first JLPT and absolutely terrified 
. I’m going through a bereavement right now on top of university so finding time to study is tough but I’m trying my best. Listening to podcasts on the train to uni and stuff like that. Listening will definitely be the killer but I’m vaguely worried about grammar too. At the end of the day I could never have anticipated the circumstances so I’m just trying to do as much as I can without beating myself up too badly (and preparing for possible failure).
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Yeah in France Latin was still taught in most schools 20 years ago (I don’t know about today). You’d generally find English, Spanish, German and Latin in most places, then maybe Ancient Greek and Italian, then maybe maybe more “exotic” languages. I was in a mid-sized city and I don’t think any school taught Japanese, although one of them taught Chinese and Russian.
But I guess it’s not surprising that a Romance language country would put more emphasis on Latin than the bri*ish.
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